Nov 20, 2013

02:48 PM

Victim's Family, Legislators Call for Sandy Hook Shooting Game to be Removed

by Jennifer Swift

Connecticut politicians and the family of one of the Sandy Hook School shooting victims are demanding the removal of a video game that allows users to act as Adam Lanza and re-enact the shootings.

“This vile video game shocks our conscience and mocks common decency,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal said in a statement. “Shamefully, as we approach the one-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting, some still exploit this horrific tragedy. It’s appalling and salacious, and it must stop.”

In the initial stage of the game, called "The Slaying at Sandy Hook Elementary" a player acts like Lanza, shooting his mother repeatedly, picking up guns and then killing more at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and then himself. The game keeps tally of how many are killed. At the end, it notifies the user how many individuals he or she killed and how many were hiding or escaped. After the user plays the first option, the game also gives users an option to play the game with a "gun control" option. In this scenario knives are used and the gun previously used in the shooting is locked away in a safe and likely fewer people end up dead.

The creator of the game, Ryan Jake Lambourn, has taken to Twitter to defend the game, claiming it is to promote a message of gun control.

The credits of the game include links to contact a user’s representative to enact gun control measures.

“Here we are nearly a year after the Sandy Hook shootings in which 26 people were killed and absolutely nothing positive has come out of it.”

That hasn’t stopped other legislators and the family of Victoria Soto, a teacher killed on Dec. 14, from demanding the game be taken down from the web and calling it distasteful.

“Through conversation with the maker of the game on Twitter, we have learned he intended it to be a video game addressing the gun control debate. But why? We do not understand why anyone would do this? Perhaps someone else knows the answer.,” Soto’s family said in a statement. “We do not encourage this game, nor do we condone it. We only bring attention to it so that we can perhaps reach the maker and make him understand why his message was delivered in the most inappropriate way. We cannot understand why anyone would think what happened at Sandy Hook is something that can or should be made into a 'game.' This is real life to us. Every day.”

Rep. Elizabeth Esty also released a statement calling for the game to be taken down.

“This is beyond disgusting. The families, who lost their loved ones in the December 14 tragedy, and the Newtown community, have had to live with unimaginable loss. They have had to live with pain that is very real and very deep, and they have had to experience this in an unusually public setting. Making a ‘game’ out of the murder of their loved ones – exploiting their suffering as a form of entertainment is wrong, disturbing, and cruel. The person behind this should stop immediately, and every website still hosting this ‘game’ should do the right thing and take it down now.”

The game is still available to be played online, though at least one of the websites that previously hosted it has removed it.

Victim's Family, Legislators Call for Sandy Hook Shooting Game to be Removed